WWS Calendar

Reclaiming the conservative movement topic of panel discussion, April 29

Location:

Audience:

Mickey Edwards, a lecturer of public and international affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School and director of the Aspen Institute-Rodel Fellowships in Public Leadership at the Aspen Institute, will be the focus of a panel discussion titled "Reclaiming Conservatism: How a Great Political Movement Got Lost- And How It Can Find Its Way Back,” at 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 29, in Bowl 016, Robertson Hall on the Princeton University campus.

Edwards will be joined by Jeffrey Bell, a principal of Capital City Partners and former president of the Manhattan Institute; Andrew Busch, an associate professor of political science at the Claremont McKenna College; and Sean Wilentz, the Sidney and Ruth Lapidus Professor in the American Revolutionary Era and a professor at the department of history at Princeton. Robert George, the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, a professor of politics and director of the James Madison Program, will moderate the panel.

Jeffrey Bell is the founder and chairman of Of the People and is a trustee of the Campaign Finance Institute and a member of the Board of Directors of the American Conservative Union. Bell worked for the campaigns of President Reagan and President Nixon, Jack Kemp and Gary Bauer. He is the author of “Populism and Elitism: Politics in the Age of Equality” and has written for The New YorkTimes, The Washington Post, and The Weekly Standard.

Andrew Busch is an associate professor of political science at the Claremont McKenna College, where he specializes in American government and politics. Busch is the author of “Ronald Reagan and the Politics of Freedom,” and is co-author of “The Perfect Tie: The True Story of the 2000 Presidential Election” with James Ceasar.

Mickey Edwards was a member of Congress for 16 years (a member of the Appropriations and Budget Committees and the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations) and was a senior member of the House Republican leadership (chairman of the Policy Committee). He was one of the three founding trustees of the Heritage Foundation and national chairman of the American Conservative Union, and served for five years as chairman of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. He is author of the new book "Reclaiming Conservatism: How a Great American Political Movement Got Lost--And How It Can Find Its Way Back" (Oxford University Press, 2008). In the book Edwards argues that conservatives today have abandoned their core principles and have become champions of that which they once most feared.

Robert George is a member of the President's Council on Bioethics and formerly served as a presidential appointee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights. He was Judicial Fellow at the Supreme Court of the United States, where he received the Justice Tom C. Clark Award. He is the author of “In Defense of Natural Law, Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality,” and “The Clash of Orthodoxies: Law, Religion and Morality in Crisis.”

Sean Wilentz studies U.S. social and political history, specializing in the early nation and Jacksonian democracy. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on U.S. history, focusing on the 19th century. He has also taught courses on American literature and 20th century Americvan culture and politics. Wilentz’s most recent book is “The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln” (2005).

This event is cosponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the James Madison Program. It is free and open to the public.

Moderator: Robert George, Professor of Politics, Princeton UniversityPanelists: Mickey Edwards, author, "Reclaiming Conservatism: How a Great Political Movement Got Lost -And How It Can Find Its Way Back"; Jeffrey Bell, Founder and Chairman, "Of the People"; Andrew Busch, Assoc. Prof. of Political Science, Claremont McKenna...